Medley
by madame.alexandra
Summary: Music is the universal language of mankind. A collection of unrelated Jibbs one-shots based on songs. Not all necessarily song-fics, though there will be quite a few. JIBBS/Sure to be angst, perhaps fluff.
1. I Told You So

_A/N: This will be a collection of unrelated sonfics, predominately JIBBS. There (rarely) may be another pairing. Rating can fluctuate_

_'I Told You So' by Carrie Underwood_

* * *

Jennifer Shepard delicately placed the phone back in its cradle on her desk, her fingers trembling just slightly. She turned towards the window behind her, where the low lights of the city spread out before her, the sights of the Sigonella, Italy NCIS field office where she was stationed. She let her eyes fall closed, as if blocking out the lights would block out everything else.

_Jennifer, my dear, have you spoken to Jethro?_

_Ducky, don't._

_He's getting married again. June, in Moscow. Her name is Stephanie._

Jenny's eyes flicked open, and her eyelashes were heavy with unshed tears.

_Suppose I called you up tonight and told you that I loved you  
__And suppose I said I want to come back home  
__And suppose I cried and said I think I finally learned my lesson  
__And I'm tired of spending all my time alone_

It had been a year—no, not even that. Eight months since the day she'd walked away from him in that Paris airport, leaving behind her nothing but the coat and her cold letter buried in its pocket. Eight months since she'd broken it off clean and steeled herself against the heartache—eight months, and he was engaged again. Maybe it hadn't hurt as much for him.

But a day hadn't gone by in eight months when she hadn't regretted that choice more than any other she'd ever made in her life.

_If I told you that I realized you're all I ever wanted  
__And it's killing me to be so far away_

Jenny leaned forward on her desk and covered her mouth with her hand, holding in emotion she couldn't afford to feel. The silence of the office enveloped her, reminded her that this was all she had and this was what she'd given up everything for.

She'd never counted on running into anything that could stop her from achieving what she was hell-bent on achieving. She'd never counted on what happened in Paris. She could kill herself for getting into this mess, and for falling so damn hard. She couldn't bring herself to wish it had all never happened, because she clung to him and her memories like life itself—it was all she had left.

The job had been everything, and the job had ruined everything. Ducky's late-night phone call, made from a different time-zone, a kind check up on an old friend, had served nothing but to twist the knife in deeper. _Moscow_. So he was still in Russia, Russia were their next op had been, had she not taken this opportunity.

She was sequestered in Italy, in the sun and warmth, while he was far away in the icy winter of Moscow—and she was here because she never wanted to be cold again, because cold nights begged for a warm body to snuggle against, and she'd thrown that all away. She hadn't realized until it was too late that she'd scarred herself deeper than she'd thought possible, the emotions ran deeper than she thought possible, and she _had_ wanted one thing more than she would ever want this job.

_Would you tell me that you love me too  
__And would we cry together_

Jenny's shoulders trembled as she turned her face into her palm, silent tears escaping emerald eyes.

Had she hurt him? Did he hate her? She imagined his eyes as he read her words, flinched at the hollow and steely look that she knew would gloss the cobalt orbs, as it always did when he hid his pain.

If she had told him, just once, twice even, before she left it all in pieces in the floor of their memories, maybe she could bear this. How would he look at her now, God forbid, if they met again? Would his lips twitch in that teasing smirk, his eyes soften? Would he even give her a second glance? If she faced him again…if she could _ever_ face him again…would anything she could ever say repair the damage done?

If her aching fingers dialed him now and she spoke the words that were eating at her, would he forgive? He had every right to hurt her in every way she'd showed him how in their most intimate moments, when her vulnerability had been his to soothe. He had all the weapons to use against her. He knew how to cut her deeply. She half hoped he would.

_Or would you simply laugh at me and say  
__I told you so, oh I told you so  
__I told you someday you'd come crawling back  
__And asking me to take you in  
__I told you so, but you had to go  
__Now I found somebody new  
__And you will never break my heart in two again_

Jenny wiped her eyes slowly, staring at the black smears of make-up on her knuckles. Sleep would not come tonight, not now. Not that it ever did. She was too afraid to face her mistakes in the dark. She had chosen this, and if it was all she had, she would make it worthwhile. Those words were how she got herself through the days, but there was still nothing to get her through the nights when there was nothing but regret and her traitorous thoughts telling her she should have listened to her romantic side.

_Eight Years Later_

Jenny caught his eye as she left the building far too late for the thousandth time in her career and looked away just as quickly, careful not to let a flicker of emotion escape the clipped, business-like glaze of her Director's eye. His eyes she felt, perhaps, linger a bit longer—and though hers had acknowledged him in the parking garage by his car for the briefest second, she'd still gotten the full effect of his hand on _her_ back as he opened the car door for _her._

She didn't want to hate Colonel Hollis Mann simply because the other woman had him, and yet she did. Maybe not an emotion as strong as _hate_, no, but jealousy, clearly, and resentment. This day had been hell, the wrap up of the case involving Army CID and Stephanie Flynn. The last thing she'd wanted was to see him ending the day with the Colonel.

_If I got down on my knees  
__And told you I was yours forever  
__Would you get down on yours too and take my hand_

She barely moved in the back seat as Melvin drove her home, her head turned towards the black-tinted window of the SUV.

They had barely begun to heal since the Grenouille disaster. La Grenouille, the pinnacle of her career, the very thing she'd sacrificed everything for, had left her with nothing again. Nothing but a meticulously cleaned gun and a dead body in the marina, and the betrayed and distrustful eyes of Jethro as he learned of all the lies and deceptions she'd woven, and of what she'd done to Tony.

He turned to Hollis and she turned away; she wanted his forgiveness and she didn't dare ask.

How far could she go before he stopped reaching out to her and reminding her of what she'd given up?

_Would we get that old time feeling  
__Would we laugh and talk for hours  
__The way we did when our love first began_

It had been more difficult than she'd ever imagined. Seeing him again, taking this job where she was forced to work with him every day. It was bittersweet, and she was selfish. She desperately guarded herself against him. She'd have preferred hatred to the soft-smile and the _'I missed you, Jen,'_ she'd gotten on her return. There were moments when they slipped into the old camaraderie, sparred lightly with each other, and it only made her want to take it all back. The regret was so heavy on her, it was the only thing that was a constant shadow over her accomplishments.

Alone, in her study, she swirled bourbon around in a tumbler, her glasses perched on her nose, her hand resting on a pile of files she'd brought home with her.

She sank into the past, of hours spent on a wooden floor in a tiny shack in Serbia, laughing, waking up next to him in Paris, sunlight streaming into the windows in Positano.

It would never be that way again, would it?

She'd ruined everything twice now. She'd ruined a chance at civility. He was home with The Colonel, his blonde comfort, and she was home with her regrets and her choices and the usual maddening I-told-you-so's of her conscience.

_Would you tell me that you've missed me too and that you've been so lonely  
__And you waited for the day that I returned._

She ran her fingers so gently over the purple painted and elegantly engraved name on the boat, steadying her breath as best she could. Her hand fell to her side, looking around at the empty basement, and her heels echoed ominously across the floor as she crossed to the workbench, touching the same tools he'd always used.

His floors creaked above her and she swallowed, fighting the urge to run away. She didn't know why she was in this damn basement anyway.

"Jenny?"

She turned when he spoke her name, voice gruff and questioning. He came down the last few steps, dropping his cell and keys on the nearest table. He glanced at the coat she'd laid over a part of the boat, and the Mason jar next to her, half-full of his bourbon.

"Jen," he said, for lack of anything else no doubt.

"Jethro," she said.

How to tell him everything she couldn't bring herself to say? Things had changed. It wasn't supposed to be like this, but Ducky had never lied to her. Hindsight was 20/20, and she hated what she had to look back at. He said something to her, and she shifted, looking at him and shaking her head.

"I'm sorry," she said, "Jethro, I'm sorry."

She repeated it like it was everything.

_And we'd live in love forever and that I'm your one and only  
__Or would you say the tables finally turned_

His hands touched her shoulders and he looked down at her, she thought he might have asked her what she was talking about, or what was wrong with her, or maybe simply just have said 'what?'

She reached up and touched the lapels of his coat. His touch was so gentle, and she deserved to be shaken. He was too good of a man. He should never forgive her for the way she'd jerked him around for years.

_Would you say I told you so, oh I told you so  
__I told you someday you'd come crawling back  
__And asking me to take you in_

But Jethro didn't say a word. His lips pressed against her forehead, and then her brow, just above her eyes, and the corner of her mouth. This was her facing her judgment from him, and he did nothing put take the pain away like he always had, when he had every right to throw her out with her letter ripped to shreds behind her.

"Why can't you hate me, Jethro? Make it easy on me?" she whispered, as he tangled his rough hand in her hair and pulled her face close, noses almost touching, her body bound tight against him pressed into the wood behind her.

He shrugged.

"I can hate everything you've ever done, Jen, but I can't hate you." He said simply, running a finger down her cheek.

"Goddamnit, Jethro," she responded hoarsely, shaking her head.

_I told you so, but you had to go  
__Now I found somebody new_

"Find someone you deserve," she told him, as his lips pressed against hers anyway, tasting her salty tears, "Someone who won't hurt you anymore," her words were bitter, regretful.

"You won't, Jen," he said, blowing her off lightly, "You've learned," he said, tilting her head up for full access to her mouth. Her hands trembled at his lapels as she pulled him closer, at home in his intoxicating smell and the taste of his mouth.

_You will never break my heart in two again._

* * *

_And so, the Medley begins._

_xoxo  
Alexa_


	2. Save the Last Dance for Me

_When the music changes, so does the dance. -- African Proverb_

_Save the Last Dance For Me--Michael Buble_

* * *

He looked over her shoulder at her reflection in the steamed up mirror, running welcoming fingers over her exposed back, watching her muscles contract and her eyelashes flutter. She leaned back into him, resting her towel-clad body against his bare chest, damp red curls falling against his skin.

His hand moved around her neck, stroking around her collar bone and the base of her neck; he pulled back her wet locks and pressed a teasing kiss to her neck just below her ear.

Jenny Shepard smirked at him in the mirror, rolling her head back against his shoulder.

"We _do_ have to make it downstairs tonight,"

He looked up, met her eyes, and kissed her jaw, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'make me' against her skin.

She lifted a perfect eyebrow at him.

"This gala's been planned for weeks," she said lazily, "it's the perfect opportunity," she turned around and leaned against the sink behind her, tilting her head up at him, "I'd hate to explain to Decker why we missed the target…_again_,"

Jethro Gibbs tried to glare his partner into submission to his charms, but she just smiled at him and ran manicured fingers from the waistline of his pants to his mouth, pressing her pointer finger over his lips.

"Bring me the bag on the bed, hm?" she asked.

He kissed the finger and scowled at her, maneuvering out of the small bathroom in their hotel suite and complying with her order. Giving it a suspicious look, he lifted the dress bag off the bed and brought it back to her.

"No peeking, Jethro," she said taking it from him and swatting his hand away. "Go," she shooed, putting her palm against him and pushing him out the door, standing and looking at him with a mischievous glint in her green eyes, red hair dripping down her pale shoulders, the towel covering her too short for its own good.

"I'll meet you in the ballroom," she said, closing the door, "the idea is to look like we didn't come together," she said, flashing him a white-toothed smile and shutting him out.

Thwarted, Jethro finished dressing himself, checking the device in his ear and the speaker cuff links on his suit before he left the suit to submit himself to a few hours of considerable torture.

The assignment was simple: Isolate the target, find out if the woman they'd noticed popping up mysteriously in connection with their op was in anyway involved or connected with _him; _gather information through observation—and possible casual conversation.

Unfortunately for Leroy Jethro Gibbs, this landed them in the middle of an evening gala, playground for the rich and tight sphincter-ed, all French socialites pretending to be philanthropists while they really flaunted their jewels and clothes and, probably unbeknownst to them, funded NCIS's target's weapons ring.

The ballroom really was too gaudy to be taken seriously, and Jethro looked over it in distaste; gold, glitter, and ridiculous ice sculptures decorated the place. He did a quick scan of the entire room, noting quick exits, his agent's eye picking out those to watch and those who didn't matter—and in a few seconds he had their target picked out.

He hadn't yet spotted the nameless woman.

Takin an inconspicuous place in the room, he made sure he had a clear vantage point, and followed the target with sharp eyes. His mind wandered, though, back to the suite upstairs and the steamy bathroom mirror, and the glint that had been Jenny's eye a few days back when they'd received this mission.

It was the glint that reminded him to be on his guard.

"This is going to be _fun_," she had said, twisting up the corner of her mouth at him and refusing to say another word.

Not many things worried Jethro Gibbs. But that did; sometimes Agent Shepard's idea of _fun_ wasn't exactly enjoyable for anyone else.

A flicker of movement at the main entrance flared in his peripheral vision, and he didn't fail to notice a few heads turn before his. He touched his ear, lifting his wrist to his mouth, and turned towards the entrance,

"Jen," he said, assuming he'd find their woman at the entrance. Instead, he dropped his wrist from his mouth and nearly dropped his jaw as well.

Jenny entered the room without seeming to notice the looks she was drawing, though he knew good and well she was aware of them. Her emerald eyes flicked over to him in a fleet second, and she reached up to touch her hair absently.

"Eyes back in your head, Agent Gibbs," her light voice filled his head through the com, and he could feel her holding back mocking laughter.

The lights caught her hair and set it on fire where it fell in perfectly arranged curls down white shoulders, the ends dancing as she moved. The red dress hugged her curves in ways that should probably be illegal, and her legs were only made longer by impossible high red stilettos that laced up her ankle. If there were straps on the dress, they were too small to be seen, and the cherry-red lipstick drawn across her pouted lips bordered on indecent.

Jethro Gibbs swallowed hard as he drank her in, grudgingly starting to realize how distracting she was going to be—because, he noticed, the dress was not really very much longer than the towel she'd worn upstairs.

The subtlest backward glance over her shoulder at him warned of exactly what he was in for tonight—_she_ was here to play.

And he needed a drink.

Much-needed glass of bourbon in his hand, Jethro mimed checking a watch.

"Your eleven o'clock," he muttered, satisfied when she acknowledge with the smallest nod of her head across the room, indicating she heard but couldn't respond. He glared at every man in the room, internally planning what exactly was going to happen to them if they so much as thought about touching her—and pitied every woman who had suddenly lost the interest of their escorts.

Across the ballroom, Jenny laid her hand on the arm of an expensive suit, curling her fingers, batting eyelashes.

He wasn't their target, but he was in about as much trouble. He watched her, tilt her head in close, and pull away, mingling and starting small. She was damn good at this. Bare moments later, her hand wrapped around the man's wrist and pulled him to a dance—and Jethro didn't miss the smug glare that was thrust over the guy's shoulder and clearly directed at him.

So, that was it.

He took a slug of the bourbon in his glass, smirking in spite of himself, accepting the unspoken challenge.

This was payback. She was playing a game, to entertain herself and punish him for the last time they'd been forced to play this particular role.

Jenny wasn't one for snobbery and aristocracy, but she could dance, she loved to dance, and she hadn't spoken to him for hours when he'd refused to dance with her last time.

If this was a challenge to his self control, he could take it (he told himself). Jenny wanted to dance? She could dance. Though, from the sparkle in her conniving eye, he was willing to bet she wasn't holding back.

_You can dance—every dance with the guy who gives you the eye  
__Let him hold you tight  
__You can smile—every smile for the man who held your hand  
_'_Neath the candle light_

Her waltz with the first victim ended swiftly, and that he was glad of. Maybe it was his imagination, but the dirt bag's hand had dipped just a little too low there at the end. Jenny smiled flirtatiously around her, accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter who held a tray in front of her, and fanned her face briefly; only he saw her lips move.

"Got her," she informed him, and when Jethro met her eyes she flicked a finger across the room to the bar, where their woman in question stood, tall and striking. She was nowhere near their original target; but it was their job to connect them, so tha was no roadblock.

To Jethro, she looked in need of a drink.

He started in her direction.

"Jethro…" he thought he heard a warning growl in her voice.

He smirked, and swiped a glass from a bus boy walking by, making his way briskly over to the woman, to Jenny's distaste.

"This is war," he heard in his ear. He laughed in the back of his throat

"You started it,"

"I'll finish it,"

He stopped in front of the woman, a pale blonde, and offered her the glass of expensive champagne.

"It's not so bad once you loosen up," he said gruffly, swallowing another shot of his own drink when she accepted the glass from him. Her lips twitched in a short smile.

"You mean to amuse me with your American charm?" she asked, her accent a mildly thick Russian. She was stiff, and he took note of the suspicion in her clear eyes.

This woman was alert, aware, and wary. Waiting for something—or more likely someone.

Jethro shrugged his shoulders, glancing around to find Jenny. Her back was to him now, shoulders set; she had turned to another French tight ass, and, judging by the look on the woman next to her victim's face, was making him drool.

"It seems you are not the only American being, ah, _charming_ this night," the woman next to him noted, a little scornfully.

"You can tell she's American?" Jethro asked, restraining his scowl as Jenny turned her attention on a man who did not have a woman by his side and managed to pull him into a close dance on the floor, alongside a few other couples. His blood boiled as he saw the man pull her tight, and watched her let him.

"No French woman would flirt with the ambassador," the Russian woman said, distastefully, "right in front of his wife."

Jenny kicked her leg up and the dress slid dangerously down her leg, revealing far too much.

Taking a drink to relax his pulse, Jethro locked his eyes on the man's across the room, glaring long and hard, discerning what he was thinking.

She could twist and turn around them all she wanted, and they could fantasize about it, but _he'd_ have her twisting on his sheets tonight.

_But don't forget who's taking you home  
__And in whose arms you're gonna be  
__So darlin', save the last dance for me_

"You do not want to be here," the woman next to him stated,

"And you're looking for someone," Jethro answered, staring straight ahead. She shifted; he noted that he'd made the right assumption.

"Perhaps,"

"Escort late?" he asked, watching as Jenny spun out of the same man's embrace and back into it, the skirt of her dress fanning out and dancing back against her legs, hitting her just right.

"You are alone," she said instead, as an answer.

"Security," he answered gruffly, and he saw her head turn sharply towards him.

"The hotel's? Or the host's?" she asked quickly, and he was careful not to show any sign of emotion.

"American Embassy's," he answered, non-committal.

She clearly knew both well. And anybody here would assume the American Embassy was looking out for any of its own who were attending this 'charity event'.

The woman next to him suddenly stiffened and, sensing the hostility emanating from her, he followed her gaze to a group off the center of the floor a little, headed by none other than the target they were here for. Jethro narrowed his attention to the circle.

Jenny was in the midst of them, her right hand pressed against the target's five thousand dollar lapel. The woman next to him tightened her hand on her glass, knuckles turning white, and she shifted a little, turning to her side and speaking sharply to a waiter walking past. Jethro took the moment to update Jenny.

"She knows him," he said, and Jenny's hand slipped up a little on the jacket, touching the chin playfully.

This time, he couldn't prevent the scowl that resulted.

"You will excuse me,"

Jethro didn't say a word as the woman set her champagne glass down on the table for drinks behind them, and glided off, her mouth set in a hard line.

The band had struck up a faster tune this time, a tango, and Jenny had taken to the floor with none other than the most dangerous arms dealer to come out of the Cold War.

She threw her head back and laughed as the man said something to her and she started the dance, somehow managing to stay balanced on her impossibly high heels. The man clearly was no stranger to the dance himself, and others backed up a little to respectfully let their host have his dance.

Jenny kicked her legs in and out of his, fast steps, a smile on her face that only Jethro recognized. She let him drop his hand down her back and leer at her more than she'd usually allow from a man. Jethro gripped the glass in his hand, now empty, tightly as she placed her hand in the target's, held it above her head, and twisted down his side, climbing back up and closing any distance between them.

Turning away, he asked another bourbon of the bartender, aware of what he would do if he watched the show much longer.

Hell knew she could get all the information she wanted that way, but he could just as easily do it with a gun and a few rounds with electromagnetic charges, and he was on his way to employing torture if that hand ventured any lower.

When he looked up from his second drink, he was surprised to find her leaning against the table next to him, her eyes bright, out of breath slightly. She turned her head a little and looked at him without appearing to see him, her lips parting slightly,

"Having fun yet?" she asked.

_Oh I know that the music's fine  
__Like sparkling wine, go and have your fun  
__Laugh and sing, but while we're apart  
__Don't give your heart to just anyone_

He lifted an eyebrow at her and shrugged, not answering, and she looked impressed. She smiled sweetly and gave a flirty 'thank you' to the man who handed her a drink, sipping it slowly, her lipstick leaving a print on the glass.

He shivered at the thought of that lipstick smeared on his skin, her lips bruised and desperate against his neck. One glance at her, and he knew she knew what he was thinking.

"Svetlana," she said, nodding slightly across the room, to where the blonde had taken Jenny's place in the arms of their target. When he looked at her a little skeptically, Jenny drew her lips between her teeth and smiled, obviously pleased with herself. "The best way to find out of people are involved is to see if they get jealous," she said.

"And we got her," she added.

The blonde did look angry.

"He's married," Jethro muttered, both still looking like they hadn't acknowledged the other's presence at all,

"Well, Jethro," she leaned a little closer, "when the cat's away, the mice will play."

"You the cat or the mouse?" he asked.

She smirked and her hand brushed against the side of his leg through his suit.

"I do like to play," she said. He threw her a look, restraining himself, guarding his eyes until they were blank.

"Have your fun, Jen," he said simply, turning back and observing the dance floor, watching the interaction between the blonde, the target, and the thugs around him. "I'll have mine," he added.

Her mouth dipped dangerously close to his ear, a smile playing that was questionably evil.

"I'm not wearing anything under this,"

Her hand drew lightly alone his leg as she walked away gracefully, giving him an unobstructed view of her back and the low dip of the dress.

"I'll save you the last dance, Jethro," she said into her wrist, making a pretense of adjusting her hair, as she provocatively sashayed her way past their target, drawing his eyes away from his blonde partner yet again.

He didn't doubt that. Though he had a different kind of tango in mind.

_But don't forget who's taking you home  
__And in whose arms you're gonna be  
__So darlin' save the last dance for me._

She pulled another man, one of the guard thugs of the weapons lord, onto the dance floor with her, showing no mercy. She flaunted herself shamelessly, for him and for the target, gauging the woman's reaction, deciding how involved she was, if she knew anything about the arms he was dealing.

In his opinion, this mission was over. Girl and Arms dealer were connected, he was done. He wanted out of this suit and Jenny out of that dress and pressed against a wall, or with her back against the sheets, at his mercy.

She laughed again, and he heard it over the jazz music that played, not the laugh he knew so well but her forced, sarcastic one. No one would know the difference, here. Except him.

_Baby don't you know I love you so  
__Can't you feel it when we touch  
__I will never never let you go  
__I love you oh so much_

She looked like sin on heels, winding around the men and swaying her hips in front of them, letting them know exactly what they could never touch.

He could no longer stand a day without her touch, without touching her, seeing her throw her head back in something other than laughter when the passion consumed them both. Her laughed if she laughed, challenged her decisions, she matched his obstinacy, never pushed him, and was always game.

Raised an eyebrow as he noticed her stealing back her previous partner, to the outrage of the blonde who had now clearly confirmed she was deeply involved with their target.

_You can dance, go and carry on  
_'_Till the night is gone and it's time to go  
__If he asks if you're all alone  
__Can he walk you home  
__You must tell him now_

After a moment of watching, visibly seeing the tension build between the two women, the blonde Svetlana reached out and touched Jenny's arm lightly, and even Jethro recognized the touch of a wildcat about to pounce. Jenny smirked, traced a hand along the target's lapel again and turned away, making sure her red dress swirled around her just enough to give a maybe the barest glimpse of forbidden skin.

Her hand brushed a stray curl off of her forehead, and she spoke into the bracelet at her wrist.

"Time to go," she said, evidently finding herself highly amusing.

"About time," he responded, taking his time to finish the drink, so as not to look suspicious. She shot him a sultry look over the crowd of stuffy people. He instantly set the glass down, and found a different exit.

Everyone had seen her leave; no one would see him go.

'_Cause don't forget who's taking you home  
__And in whose arms you're gonna be  
__So save the last dance for me_

He met her coming off the elevator on the floor, he having opted for the stairs in order to meet her. Her crimson hair was damp at the ends again, and the few curls escaped and blown across her face were wet as well. She lifted the room key out of the front of her dress and turned, opening it with a soft click.

He kicked the door shut behind him and grabbed her by the arm, turning her and pushing her against the door, invading her personal space and trapping her so she could barely move. She gasped as her back hit the door and then laughed breathlessly.

Her laughter quickly faded into a whimper when he jerked down the thin strap over her shoulder and pressed an open mouth to her shoulder and just below, trailing his mouth and his tongue over her shoulder and neck.

"Oh…Jethro…" her hand gripped his side tightly.

"You wanna dance, Jen?" he asked, his lips brushing against her ear, his hand pushing the short, red silk of her dress out of his way.

She lifted her chin to expose her neck to him completely and shivered at his touch, Aware she was going to regret her provoking stunts this evening.

"My turn," he growled, the vibration sending shocks down her spine, lighting every nerve on fire.

"God," she moaned, arching against him.

She changed her mind. She didn't regret provoking him at all.

"Don't forget," he pushed the other strap of her dress down, determined to reveal if whether or not she'd told the truth when she'd said she wasn't wearing anything under the dress.

She had.

"Don't forget who takes you home," he said, not even bothering to close his mouth completely as he met her lips with his, passionate, demanding, and possessive.

_Save the last dance, the very last dance, for me._

* * *

_Perhaps this explains why Svetlana has such a grudge against Jenny? :]_

_Alexa_


	3. When You Say Nothing At All

**Warning: **Rating **'M'**

_A/N: I did not meant to write smut; it sort of happened. This was going to go completely a different way but...eh, the muse ran away with me. Take rating seriously._

_'When You Say Nothing At All' -Alison Krauss [Lyrics at the end]_

* * *

Thunderstorms raged over Paris, turning the usually peaceful and comforting night sky into a battlefield of noise and flickering light. Rain was ruthless on the windows and rooftops, pounding and incessant, a storm like the City of Light had never seen. In the midst of the tempest, Jenny Shepard pulled herself out of the clutches of a nightmare that left her shaking, her knees drawn up to her chest, leaning against the headboard of the bed. Never a fan of thunderstorms, she closed her eyes and bit her lip, trying to steady her breathing quietly, unwilling to wake the man sleeping next to her.

She lifted open her eyes and leaned her head back against the headboard, wrapping an arm around her knees to keep them steady. Jenny tired to block the haunting images of her dreams from her mind's eye, push them from her thoughts, but she couldn't. Thunder crashed violently and she flinched and clenched her fist into the sheets beneath her.

A hand covered hers on the sheet and moved up her arm, snaking across her stomach. He lifted himself up on one elbow blearily, blinking slowly. Her body trembled and he sat up quickly, sensing her distress, his blue eyes flashing alert and searching her pale face anxiously.

"Jen?" he questioned hoarsely, his voice thick with sleep. She let her hand fall from her knees and grip his arm tightly at her waist.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs pulled his arm gently out from under hers, reached up to touch her face gently and, feeling the tears on her cheeks, pulled her closer. He rested his palm on the back of her head and pressed his lips against her ear, hushing her without a word or a question, concerned not with what had scared the hell out of her but with calming her down.

Jenny rested her head against his shoulder, pressing closer to him. She closed her eyes and swallowed bracingly, relaxing into the warmth of his chest. Jethro ran his hand through her hair soothingly, lulling her nerves with only his touch. She touched his neck and pulled him closer to her, the darkness of her nightmares already starting to fade at the touch of his lips to her temple.

She didn't need any words of reassurance. She just needed him there.

He never asked her to talk about her nightmares. She never asked him about his. They didn't say a word about their demons in the dark, the ghosts that chased them in the late hours of the night, but he was always there to wake her up. He turned on her lights and reminded her where she was and she could look into his steel blue eyes and accept that it wasn't real, not half of it at least, and he could get her back to sleep like nothing or no one ever could.

Jethro pulled the blanket and sheets around himself and Jenny where they had fallen away. His finger stroked down her cheek lightly, wiping away tears silently. His hand ran down over her shoulder, touching her ribs, her stomach, falling on her legs. He pulled her closer yet. He knew how much she hated storms.

Jenny felt him press his lips to her forehead again, and then lower his mouth to her ear and her neck, warm mouth distracting her from the childish fear. In his lazy caress was a comfort more powerful than the prettiest words. His touch was more gentle than sexual; she pulled back to look at him, still half in pieces, running her hands through the little hair at the nape of his neck. His lips turned up in the barest of smiles.

He kissed her long and slow, and she didn't hear the booming crash of thunder overhead this time. She let him break the kiss only when air became vital, her lips barely an inch away from his, parted slightly. She bit her lip and closed her eyes.

"You're fine, Jen," he murmured, pressing his forehead against hers.

She nodded, shivering as he laced his fingers tightly into her hair and held on.

"I know," she mumbled. She opened her eyes and pulled back slightly. "Can't sleep," she whispered with a shiver in her voice.

He studied her white face, searched her watery green eyes. Rare was the occasion he saw her this messed up and beyond control of her emotions or her tears. She didn't seem like the same Jenny she was when they stalked targets in the streets of Paris; she was almost breakable.

Words slipped through his fingers and he resorted to the only thing he knew that would assuage her and let her know that he didn't care if she cried or if she let him see her defenses down. He tilted her head back and kissed her again. He shifted from his position and tugged her arm gently, pulling her on top of him and wrapping his arms around her slim waist. She rested her hands on either side of his face and pulled his lips up to meet hers, her lips salty with tears and full of need.

Jenny moaned softly into his mouth; he reached for the thin straps of the silk thing she was wearing and eased them off her shoulders, dropping it down her arms and revealing her fair skin, visible in the dark room. He pulled her closer at the waist, tighter, so his bare skin pressed against hers. Jethro dropped a hand between them to her thigh, sliding his hands over her smooth skin until she curled her fingers against his neck and pulled her mouth away from his and arched against him.

"Jenny," he murmured against her neck, kissing down her throat, pressing his mouth against her breasts. She gasped in his ear, her legs tightening around him. Jenny drew her lip between her teeth, dark thoughts and images chased completely from her mind, nothing left but Jethro and his mouth and hands.

She tilted her head back and his hands drifted up her back, nails tracing her spine like feathers. She felt him pressed against her between her legs and lifted her head back to find his eyes, threading her fingers into his silver hair, pushing his head back against the headboard. He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissed her fingers and her palm; Jenny shifted her hips and moved on him. He sucked in his breath as she took him inside her and his hands fell to her waist, skating over her ribs and holding her while he let her take the lead.

Jenny pressed a hand against his shoulder, flattening out her fingers and curling them back around his biceps, her nails digging into his flesh. Jethro stroked the inside of her thighs, encouraging her; she bent forward and he leaned up to meet her kiss.

She whimpered his name against his lips, her movements urgent and her skin warm and slick against his.

"Jethro," she moaned, louder, her mouth open and urgent against his. He drew his lips down her throat, pushing her head back, giving her what she wanted. He heard her sharp cry as his hand dipped between them again, stroking her where she needed him. He pulled her arm and took her under him; Jenny arched her back and tightened her legs around his waist, guiding his lips to her neck.

She came undone underneath him and he followed her unrestrained, unintelligible words tumbling from his mouth. Her head fell back against the pillows, rolling to the side, and she pulled him with her, all of his muscles relaxing though he was carefully not to collapse all of his weight on her.

She turned her head to face him, pillowing her cheek on his arm, wincing reflexively as he slipped out of her, their legs tangled together in a mess to be sorted out later. Jethro pushed her tangled and damp hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears so he could see her flushed face and bright eyes better.

Jenny swallowed, reading her own emotions reflected in his sapphire eyes. Her sense of despair was gone, her fear gone, tears forgotten and nightmares chased away. His fingers pushed through her wet curls absently, spreading her locks out on the sheets behind her. Sweat dried on her skin, cooled her, and she shivered, snuggling closer to him and sighing quietly when his hand moved from her hair to her shoulder and around her back, holding her.

Jenny pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Jethro's throat, resting her head lightly on his arm, closing her eyes. This feeling was worth the pain and terror she experienced. She didn't need him to tell her she was fine; she knew she was, with him. His every motion and action radiated safety. It was why she could cry unabashed in front of him. He was hardened, sarcastic, moody, rarely said anything you wanted to hear. But Jethro _showed_ her what she _needed_ to know. That was all that mattered.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was a man of few words, more often no words; she didn't care.

She didn't need his _words_.

* * *

_It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart  
__Without saying a word you can light up the dark  
__Try as I may I could never explain  
__What I hear when you don't say a thing_

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me  
__There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me  
__The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall  
__You say it best when you say nothing at all_

_All day long I can hear people talking out loud  
__But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd  
__Old Mr. Webster could never define  
__What's being said between your heard and mine_

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me  
__There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me  
__The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall  
__You say it best when you say nothing at all._

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me  
__There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me  
__The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall  
__You say it best when you say nothing at all_

* * *

_I hate Alison Krauss' voice but it really is a beautiful song_

_XOXO  
__Alexa_


	4. She Is

_A/N: Set directly after Season4Ep2 'Escaped'. Meaning, pretty much after the credits roll. 'She Is' by The Fray_

* * *

She was his comfort.

It wasn't just about the sex even though the sex was _mind_-_blowing_, to speak mildly. It may have been once, at the very beginning, but that had become something deeper still, even when neither of them had been mature enough or ready enough to handle the consequences. And so, it had ended, bitterly and suddenly. Even then, though, before it had fallen apart so painfully, she had been something for him that he hadn't realized he held so close.

It was so much different now, and so eerily the same. They were older, they'd had time to look at their mistakes and make thousands more, and still they'd refused to see what was right in front of their eyes until something had almost taken away any chance they had to ever say what neither one of them ever could.

It had been devastating when she left, and seeing her everyday suddenly, after six years of no contact, had reminded him of just how deep that betrayal had cut. He'd been angry to see her so aloof, so blithely unaffected, he thought, by the unresolved issues and the explosive past they harbored. He wasted time trying to cling to his partner Jenny instead of exploring who she was now, as the Director, and he'd ignored the way he was hurting her to stew in his own contempt for what she'd done so many years ago.

And when he'd woken up from that explosion, so confused and so lost, wanting nothing more than to hold Kelley close and kiss Shannon one last time, it had been her face and her dull, hurting eyes that had soothed that ache in his soul. Yet it hadn't been enough. He left even though he could see the plea in her green eyes and he was so glad and so sorry at the same moment that he was hurting her, and walking away like she'd walked away from him.

He ignored her because he wanted her and he needed her after that dark time, and he wasn't willing to put that vulnerability in her destructive hands and watch her drop it all in pieces on the floor again.

So he left, and sat half-drunk on a beach in Mexico for three months, thinking about Shannon and Kelley and all that he'd lost and how she had always been able to chase the demons away without a word.

_Do not get me wrong  
__I cannot wait  
__For you to come home.  
__For now you're not here  
__And I'm not there  
__It's like we're on our own  
__To figure it out,  
__Consider how  
__To find a place to stand  
__Instead of walking away and  
__Instead of nowhere to land._

When he'd come back, dragged from his alcohol-induced oblivion and thrust back into the real world in order to help the people he considered family, that look in her eye was gone. The green orbs were cold and guarded, like they'd been in her first few days as Director, and he looked at her across the desk, vague memories of Serbia and hot summer trysts surfacing, knowing he'd probably ruined the one chance he had and feeling anger at himself and his stubbornness boil his blood at the thought.

_This is going to break me clean in two  
__This is going to bring me close to you_

Still, she had come walking down his basements steps as regally as always in her ever-present heels, keeping her emotions tactfully in check and her pretty eyes expertly empty as she said her words. He read into it a want for him to say he would stay for her sake, even though he knew if she knew that's what he was thinking, she'd hate him even if it was true.

She turned to go, and it was been too much. He couldn't let her walk out again, not when the absence of Corona in his system for more than twenty-four hours was bringing back all the pain he'd been pushing away and ignoring all summer. He could see Kelley's smiling face again and he couldn't blink it away, but it was only Kelley this time; beyond her he could see Jenny, paused on the stairs, looking at him with softened eyes, saying his name softly.

Next thing he knew he was holding onto her, the closest to crying he'd been since he lost his family. He pulled her closer and closer, finding solace in the way she fit against him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders while she tucked her head under his chin and let him draw strength from her.

He couldn't speak a syllable beyond her name. She was tense, fighting the pull to get wrapped up in this again and at the same time remembering how good it had been and how much better it might be. Her hands soothed his nerves. He was flooded by too many emotions to deal with: the hurt, the old anger at her and the anger at himself for hurting her when he left and not letting her comfort him then. She was what he wanted the whole time and he was just too proud to give in.

_She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted  
__She is everything I want that I never knew I needed_

There had been no thoughts to the consequences that night; she hadn't said a word. She just knew what he needed and had been there to provide it, even though he asked her three months too late, even though she had every right to slap him in the face and walk out. They'd played with fire and burned each other relentlessly, seeing who could hit the other hardest in just the right spot; it was a miracle their once-romantic relationship hadn't been damaged beyond repair.

He'd stumbled up to bed with her, drinking in her kisses and her scent, knotting his hands in the red hair he saw in his dreams and sinking his fingertips into her fair skin, hell-bent on having her close all night. It was a night that had been in the making since she walked back into his life: desperate, passionate, sweaty, raw, and riddled alternately with lust and need.

Nothing hurt as much when she was touching him, when he was wrapped up in her. It had always been that way, in Paris, Positano, _always_. She understood. She wasn't like the others, women who hadn't faced an obstacle or a tragedy in their lives; she had her demons and she knew what it was like to hurt and be incapable of speaking about it until it was left to eat you up inside.

He breathed her in, held her close, used her to chase away the pain.

She made him feel, made him gasp her name, replacing crushing numbness with heat and remembrance of what it was like to be alive. He ran his hands up her silken legs around his waist, eyes closed; listening to the sounds she made when he touched her and clinging to that, selfishly glad that she needed him as much as he needed her even if they'd both die before owning to that kind of dependence on another person.

_It's all up in the air  
__And we stand  
__Still to see what comes down  
__I don't know where it is,  
__I don't know when,  
__But I want you around  
__When it falls into place with you and I,  
__We go from if to when.  
__Your side and mine are both  
__Behind its indication. _

The sheets were a mess, he was a mess, and she stayed close. He'd expected her to leave, with regret and anger in her eyes, but she wrapped herself around him in the twisted and warm sheets, laying her head next to his on the pillows, her mouth pressed gently against his shoulder and her legs still tangled up with his.

He threaded his hand through her hair, resting his palm on her cheek and holding her, needing to feel her still, healed by the feel of her heart beat coming down slowly against his chest as her breathing evened slightly. She swallowed, he felt the movement against his shoulder, and he knew somehow that she was crying, but he wouldn't acknowledge it.

Her arm stretched across his chest, her hand flattening out against his skin, running back and forth over his abdomen and ribs. She didn't say a word; he could hear her thinking, hear her berating herself for this and asking why she was setting herself up for a fall again. He saw how this could almost parallel what had happened last time, but it was more dangerous and yet easier at the same time.

_This is going to bring me clarity  
__This'll take the heart right out of me_

God, he didn't want it to end like that again. It couldn't, he knew that; it would be worse. If they had to see it end again and then face each other day to day, neither one of them would last. But if he had her to look at when he came home at the end of the day, her eyes to seek out when the case he'd handled had been particularly grating, it might make it that much more bearable.

She pressed her kiss to his shoulder, then to the dip between his collarbone and neck, leaning forward, her hair falling over his chest like a curtain. He tugged on her arm gently and pulled her on top of him, pulling her trembling mouth to his and kissing her selfishly, drawing her in and chasing her pro and con thoughts away. He watched her close her eyes and sink into him, her hands stretching out to lay with his on the bed, entwining fingers.

_She is everything I want that I never knew I wanted  
__She is everything I want that I never knew I needed_

He was an idiot for ever thinking he could go through this alone. Drowning memories and feelings in bourbon worked blissfully for the hours the alcohol raged through his system, but what then, when it was gone? He could only sand away so many imperfections on a damn boat before he had to face his own.

She'd always made him face his faults; he'd always made her own up to hers in fights that made them scream and yell and almost hate each other. They were better people because if it. She complemented him. She mirrored him. When he saw her darkness seep into her eyes, and tried to mediate when she got out of control, overstepped her bounds, he was sharply reminded of himself. It was always a cause to make him stop, to make him watch his step.

She drew her hands up his arms, touching his face, pressing her fingers against his lips. Stretching out, she rested her head on his chest at his neck, her small hand squeezing his shoulder and slipping down to draw circles on his skin. He shifted his arms and ran them through her damp curls again, tracing her spine, and her arms, and the back of her thighs where he could reach.

_This is going to bring me to my knees.  
__I just want to hold you close to me._

Her shoulders shivered, and she sighed against him, kissing his shoulder. He knew she would stay with him through the night, let him hold her and touch her. It was easy to be with someone who knew your sins and who'd seen you laid bare. Someone you knew didn't judge you.

She pushed herself up, shifting to the side and pulling on his shoulder until he followed her and held himself over her so he wouldn't hurt her, pressing kisses to her neck below her ear as she arched her back and dug her nails into his back. She lifted her knee, pressing her thigh against his waist, pulling him closer, and he read it in her now unguarded eyes that she didn't give a damn about the consequences anymore.

_She is everything I want that I never knew I needed  
She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted_

She made him feel something other than loss and bitter anger at the world when she pulled at his hair and moaned his name into his shoulder, biting him gently, letting him find comfort inside her. She knew what she was to him. He just hadn't let himself see it because he was so against letting himself feel anything like this again. He wanted to feel it now, before he let the chance slip through his fingers the way he already almost had. As she arched into him and he shuddered against her, her name falling from his lips, he knew he'd be able to face work and the team tomorrow because she was there, and because she was _here_.

_She is everything. She is everything._

* * *

_xoxo_

_Alexa_


	5. Lips of an Angel

_A/N: I really did not want to do this song, but a few choice lyrics kept getting to me and the pull was too strong. It's a different take on the last few episodes of season 4/first few of season 5._

_Lips of an Angel: Hinder_

* * *

He wasn't asleep when the phone started ringing. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet, steady sound of Hollis's calm breathing next to him. When his cell phone lit up and buzzed quietly on the table next to him, he fumbled for it quickly, reluctant to allow it to wake her, expecting a case—and if there was one, hoping to slip out without her noticing.

He didn't bother to check the caller ID. He ran a hand over his face and turned away from the woman in his bed, flipping open the phone silently and holding it to his ear.

"Gibbs," he said quietly, his customary gruff greeting.

"Jethro,"

His heart skipped a few beats. Her voice was soft and hoarse, barely audible, but he could identify it in a crowd of millions. God, just hearing her say his name could still make him ache for her like he used to. He swallowed hard and glanced over his shoulder at Hollis. She was still fast asleep, and didn't move as he gingerly sat up and found his jeans by the bed.

"Jen?" he asked quietly, conversationally, just to make sure.

She murmured softly.

He stood up and buckled his jeans, giving Hollis one last glance before he slipped out of his bedroom and into the hall, pulling the door to a cracked position. He rubbed his eyes quickly to push sleep out of them and blinked, adjusting to the dark of his hallway.

"What is it, Jen?" he asked gruffly, a little muddled. It was nearing three in the morning, last time he checked.

"I figured you'd be awake," she said, in that same small voice.

Something in her voice woke him up fully. He pulled the phone close to his mouth and started down the hall, keeping his voice low so he wouldn't wake Hollis.

"You crying, Jen?" he asked in a whisper, entering his neglected dining room and flicking on a small lamp. He let his eyes adjust to the dim, dusty light.

"Are you alone?" Jenny asked, ignoring his question.

But he knew. He knew from the controlled, quiet timbre of her voice she was crying wherever she was, and the knowledge pulled at him. He put his hand on the back of a dining room chair and leaned on it, gripping the lacquered wood.

Jenny made a noise of realization on the line.

"You're with her," she said, louder this time, her voice matter of fact.

"Jenny—" he started slowly, trying to work this out.

"I shouldn't have called."

"Hey, Jen," he said softly, ignoring her.

He looked at his reflection in a glass china cabinet that hadn't been touched in years and paused, unsure of what to say to her. He didn't know what was wrong, and she was throwing him for a loop with this one, calling him at an ungodly hour in tears when this past year had been all about lies and secrecy and bitter arguments.

"Everything okay?" he asked probingly.

Her breath caught.

"I," she said, and paused. "No," she answered, her voice flat, "No. It's not," her voice cracked this time.

Jethro pulled out the chair and sat down, resting his elbows on the mahogany table and leaning forward, itching for a glass of bourbon. He leaned forward and rested his forehead in his palm, still cradling the cell phone against his ear. He could hear her swallowing her tears through the phone, trying not to sound like she really was crying, and it got to him. Jenny didn't cry. He hated to see her cry, and hearing it was worse.

"Jen, are you hurt?" he asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," she answered thickly.

"Something happen at work? Is someone else hurt?"

"Jethro," she interrupted, placating. He could imagine her shaking her head, sighing. "Is Tony all right?" she asked after a moment, guilt-ridden and subdued.

Jethro felt the twinge of annoyance and betrayal that had been flaring up all week at the sight of her when she mentioned his senior field agent. He resisted the overwhelming urge to lash at her, to snap at her that she'd proven she didn't give a damn about Tony's well-being, except he sensed that she cared more than anything right now.

"Don't know, Jen," he said shortly, hoping that would get the point across. The last thing he wanted her calling to chat about in the middle of the night was the Frog. She sighed shakily on the other end of the line and he let his eyes fall closed, doing his best to ignore the torrent of emotions whirling in his head.

Something was wrong. She didn't call to talk about Tony. She wouldn't. She wasn't the type woman to ever own up to how wrong she'd been in using him. He knew her well enough to know she didn't regret that, though she may regret the disastrous outcome. It was a means to an end.

"Why are you calling so late, Jen?" he asked steadily, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.

Didn't she know how it felt to hear her sounding so defeated and have no ability to help? It had been years since he'd seen a shred of vulnerability in her eyes, and now her voice was in his ear in these late hours, ridden with it. He could see the tremble of her lips, how she would bite them to stop the shaking and turn her face away from him to hide her tears.

"Jenny,"

"This is all my fault," she whispered.

"Jen, are you drunk?" he asked tiredly, slowly, trying not to picture her red eyes and drooping shoulders. It didn't matter; he could see her clearly in his mind eye, leaning back in her study chair or curled against her headboard.

"Little bit," she answered, with a small laugh that was devoid of any mirth. "I messed up, Jethro," she added shortly.

He didn't answer. He felt she wasn't talking about what had just happened with Tony. This was something more, something deeper. Jethro looked towards the entrance of the dining room warily, expecting Hollis to walk in. She wouldn't take this well at all, if she knew.

"We all mess up," he said gruffly.

"I jeopardized everything. I really stepped in it," she said, her voice breaking now. A few short breaths was all it took to calm her voice and he clenched his fist on the table, looking up to the ceiling and soothing her out of habit though he damn well shouldn't be.

"This will blow over, Jen," he said calmly, testing the waters. He heard her derisive snort and had his answer; they weren't talking about Tony's badly ended mission.

"Remember Paris? Ninety-nine?"

He closed his eyes at the barrage of memories and sank down in the chair, biting back a groan and unclenching his hand to dig his nails into the table.

"How could I forget?" he muttered tightly.

He knew she was talking about the time she jumped the gun and ended up in hot water. In the back of his mind, though, he liked to think she was remembering everything else, too, and how good it had been. He wondered if she wanted it back a desperately as he did.

"It's bigger than that," she whispered, words shaking precariously, "Jethro I…I put my career on the line. I messed _up_. I was so angry…I did something,"

She started crying. He heard her; she pulled the phone away from her face and turned away. Frustrated, he gripped the phone until his knuckles were white, his being focused now on her. He swallowed hard, hating the sound of her distress, aching to brush her tears away, feeling inexplicably guilty for having this conversation while Hollis slept mere feet away.

"What happened?" he asked coolly. "Jen, what happened?"

"You already know," was her dull answer, "don't you?"

He paused. He'd been ignoring the shouting voice in the back of his head this entire time, since he heard her broken voice on the phone. Deep down, he knew; he knew what she had done and he knew she was just realizing the magnitude of her actions. Gritting his teeth, he stared into the china cabinet again and listened to her draw her breath.

"Jenny," he coaxed quietly, sharply.

"He killed my _father_," she whispered tearfully, "my d_addy_, Jethro!"

His gut clenched. The empty boat in the harbor flashed before his eyes, the time his team had spent searching for Grenouille only to come up with an empty yacht and no sign of the arms dealer Jenny had gone to hell and back to get.

Hours ago, he'd confronted that bastard in her study. He'd watched her fingers itch for the trigger of her Glock, been the silent reminder that she had to control the rage and the bloodlust and reign herself in. He'd left her. He'd left her alone with that tempting gun and a shelf well-stocked with bourbon, to sit and the dark and think about what the Frog had robbed her of.

"You killed him," he said softly.

"I hate him," she whispered hoarsely, viciously.

Jethro clenched his fist again.

"I shouldn't have left you," he said against his better judgment.

"I wanted him dead," she sobbed quietly, "consequences be damned, I wanted to see him bleed! You know that feeling. _You_ understand," she paused, swallowing, her crying quieting as she reigned in her carefully constructed control. "God, Jethro. You are the only one who will ever understand."

He understood. The drinking, the sitting in the dark, and the crushing feeling of loss that was alleviated but never really soothed by seeing its perpetrator dead and bleeding at your feet. He understood the blind drive to avenge and the coldness that set in afterwards when you sat back and looked at the havoc and were forced to face your sins and call yourself a murderer.

"Why tell me, Jen?"

"I don't know," she whispered brokenly.

Silence fell between them and he was left to dwell on how they had never needed words to express themselves to each other. She could sense his moods; he had a feel for hers. He should have stayed with her. He knew the look that had been in her eye when he left and he'd ignored it and forced himself home to Hollis, refusing to give into temptation or dare risk letting something reckless and stupid happen.

"It still hurts, doesn't it, Jen?" he asked hoarsely.

"Like _hell_," she answered with another mirthless laugh.

He couldn't stop the words out of his mouth next.

"You want me to come over?" he asked, on the verge of leaving without a second thought to what he would tell Hollis in the morning.

She sure as hell needed him there. She wouldn't have called if she didn't. She'd lost control of the situation. Yet she'd never admit need to him, she never had. He wouldn't use that word. Want and need were different things, though he'd bet she wanted him as much as she needed him right now, wanted him as much as he found himself wanting her.

"I think we both know that's not a good idea," she answered calmly, her voice much more controlled now.

Jethro smirked reflexively. They were in dangerous territory anyway.

"Jen," he said softly. She murmured in response. "Don't drink anymore tonight," he ordered gently.

"No," she said slowly, "I don't think I can."

Jethro rubbed his eyes, still bothered so intensely by her voice. He wished she was curled against him, talking in his ear, her soft lips brushing his skin. He wanted to be there to wipe this from her mind and force her to face it the next day, stand by and walk her through it. He'd been there and he knew this suffering. But she was off-limits and he had no right to be talking to her. She had no right to call him like this. It hit him, for the first time, how unfair this relationship really was to Hollis Mann.

"Get up tomorrow and look yourself in the eye. Face it sober. You can't go back now," he said, remembering his own sins and mistakes of the same sort.

"Jethro, I'm sorry," she said slowly, sounding re-awakened. "It was wrong to call you like this. I can't...we can't," she paused, and he could feel her sudden frustration. He imagined the annoyance in her eyes, the curve of her lips as she fought with the same struggle he did.

"I just wanted to hear your voice," she said simply, and heart-breakingly calmly. "It was selfish," she said and paused again. Her voice was very quiet when she spoke again, finally, "But you know how much it hurts. You won't judge me."

"Jen," he said huskily, and stopped abruptly. "Sleep, Jenny," he finished quietly, lacking the gall to say anything else, and hit by a wave of guilt for even thinking the way he was.

"If I could go back," she said shortly, quietly, "There are things I'd do differently,"

He listened to the line go dead and pulled the phone away from his face. He stared at the blinking number as it flashed, signaling the end of a call. His fingers curled around the phone tightly. He heard the regret in her voice. The apology. The acceptance. Hell, he'd do things differently too. Maybe, given the chance, he'd go after her.

"Jethro,"

He didn't turn to look as Hollis called his name from the doorway. He could tell from the way she'd said it she had been standing there too long without him even noticing her presence. He bowed his head and flicked the phone shut, pressing it into his forehead.

It was late. Hollis murmured something softly, clearly ignoring whatever she'd just heard, but it was Jenny's voice that echoed in his ears.

_Honey, why are you calling me so late?  
It's kinda hard to talk right now.  
Honey, why are you crying is everything okay?  
I gotta whisper 'cause I can't be too loud._

_Well, my girl's in the next room  
Sometimes I wish she was you  
I guess we never really moved on_

_It's really good to hear your voice saying my name  
It sounds so sweet  
Coming from the lips of an angel hearing those words  
It makes me weak_

_And I never wanna say goodbye  
'Cause girl you make I hard to be faithful  
with the lips of an angel_

_It's funny that you're calling me tonight  
And yes I've dreamt of you too  
She doesn't know you're talking to me  
We'd start a fight  
No, I don't think she has a clue_

_Well, my girl's in the next room  
Sometimes I wish she was you  
I guess we never really moved on_

_It's really good to hear your voice saying my name  
It sounds so sweet  
Coming from the lips of an angel hearing those words  
It makes me weak_

_And I never wanna say goodbye  
'Cause girl you make I hard to be faithful  
with the lips of an angel_

_Honey, why you calling me so late?_

* * *


	6. I Will Remember You

_A/N: This is for Aly, since she wanted something to make her happy after the LSATs_.

_I Will Remember You--Sarah McLachlan_

**

* * *

**

In all the years that she'd known him, Ducky had never lied to her; not once. Nor had he made a mistake. Now, with the blinding, painful reality staring her in the face, she didn't even have the foolish hope that he had gotten this one thing wrong to cling to and numb the piercing truth. She had nothing left but the cold, impersonal facts, and the ghostly, lingering touch of Ducky's warm and comforting hand on her arm.

Her control was yanked away from her and she was left trying to catch the thin, leftover ribbons of her accomplishments, thoughts, desires, and choices—her life—that were left to her before they could slip out of her grasp for good. In the dark, alone with the crushing certainty, she could only look back because now there was no forward, and when she looked back her mistakes, regrets, and the memories that shook her convictions were thrown violently in her face and forced her to rethink it all.

_I will remember you  
__Will you remember me?  
__Don't let your life pass you by  
__Weep not for the memories_

It was as if suddenly everything that had been so important to her, so vital to her ambition and pride, amounted to nothing and mattered not at all. She sifted through everything she'd given up and all the things she'd turned away from, watching every decision she'd ever made play back like a whirlwind, tangibly watching her life pass by.

The past was cemented in place and preserved perfectly for her to review, and the old adage 'hindsight is twenty-twenty' had never been as painful to her as it was now. There were so many things that she could never change, that were too much ruined to ever be repaired, even if she had a shred of the time she needed to do it.

She'd made sacrifices in her life, she'd known what she'd wanted, she'd always possessed the drive to get it. She had resolutely accomplished her set goals, held her ground, shattered the proverbial glass ceiling into millions of pieces and stood among the wreckage as victorious as she'd ever wished to be—and at what price? Small things meant nothing; there were little things, trivial things, all people gave up in order to achieve their dreams. But she…what had she done?

She had hurt. She had broken hearts. She had given up something that she had always inertly known was the best thing for her, the best thing to ever happen to her, and she had thrown it all away in favor of an obsessive drive for revenge and vindication.

When the petty nostalgia and fleeting regrets faded away and melted into the background of her myriad of generic memories, his cold-as-ice, cerulean blue eyes remained, haunting her. Piercing into the depth of her soul and reading the viciously suppressed guilt and emotion written there. She almost couldn't breathe.

_Remember the good times that we had?  
__I let them slip away when things got bad  
__How clearly I first saw you smiling in the sun  
__Wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one_

He had been everything to her once. In a time when she'd been consumed with adrenaline and passion, overwhelmed with the ferocity and exhilarating vitality of emotions so strong she didn't know how to sort them, emotions only he had ever evinced. She easily called nights spent with him the best she'd known, she achingly remembered his gentle, caressing touch and deep, growling voice, and the way his gruff laughter had always made her smile like no one else could.

It had been them against the world, something she'd never seen coming, a relationship fraught with unbridled desire, scathing sarcasm, and an almost never-ending stream of arguments that only brought them closer in the end. Nothing touched her when she was with him. He had been the constant sun in her life even when everything around her was cloaked in shadow and the dark was encroaching upon her as it inevitably did.

He had always felt right. His silence was the most soothing thing in the world to her, his arms her sanctuary, and his hands her paradise. His eyes had anchored her to earth and captivated her, and she knew he was as much hers then as she was his. Something fused them together, it always had, and currents of attachment had been so inexplicably strong between them. He never failed to make her smile.

She had broken it. She had run, made a mess of things, watched it start to crumble and then stepped back the kick down the foundation and watch it fall with stinging eyes and a slowly hardening heart. Somewhere in there, she'd remembered her drive and her ambition, she'd struggled, and her callous, primal prowl for vengeance had sprung back to the forefront of her mind and won out in the stress and bitterness of that last mission, the mission she hadn't even had the gall to complete.

She had snatched opportunity when it was offered to her and left scared, leaving in her wake as much destruction, resentment, and heartache as she took with her, though her betrayal was so much more the sharper stab in the back because it was short and cold, heartlessly penned in the most pristine of script on a piece of paper spritzed with her perfume. The memory of her cruelty hurt. The memory of what she'd so carelessly and selfishly given up threatened her sanity, now that she faced judgment.

_I will remember you  
__Will you remember me?  
__Don't let your life pass you by  
__Weep not for the memories_

In the days after she'd left, in the hours, seconds, nights, months, and eventually years, there hadn't been a night when she'd slept soundly. Nightmares or no, she would lay awake, contemplating, wondering, regretting, and then angrily forcing herself to remember what she was working for.

Sometimes she thought of him. She ached for him, hoped to god he hated her and didn't miss her like she missed him because she would never wish that kind of pain on someone she felt so deeply for. He had every right to hate her. Sometimes, alone in a hotel room or wherever her job had taken her, she cried and then hated her tears, transferring that hostility onto him for making her want him so violently.

In those tiring, lonely, and cold days where there was nothing to keep her going but the knowledge that if she failed, everything would be for nothing, hurting him would be for nothing, she had clung ferociously to her career and pushed every resource to the limit, determined to knock him forever from her dark mind and prove to the world she was stronger than those who loved.

She had never forgotten, though, no matter how hard she tried. In the shadowy recesses of her mind, she'd always burned to know if he thought of her with the same fire she burned with hoping he hadn't drowned in the misery she had.

_I'm so tired but I can't sleep  
__Standing on the edge of something much too deep  
__It's funny how we feel so much we cannot say a word  
__We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard_

Her head ached, though it ached consistently now. Her eyes stung sharply and she blinked, her eyelashes heavy with tears that had been suppressed since the day she saw his face again, and still she refused to cry. At the apex of her ambition and the pinnacle of her success, his presence and the lingering pain in his cobalt eyes had drained her elation and stung her to the core. Seated on the throne she'd worked so hard to seize, she'd been a mess on the inside.

It was how she felt now. Strong, guarded, powerful and respected on the outside while her emotions ran amok inside, tearing her apart at the seams. She finally understood why he was so silent, when she learned of all the pain in his life before he knew her: there was too much heartache to voice. She felt it now and she'd felt it since she left him. The only way to feel was to sit in silence and let it fill your mind.

There were so many moments, so many moments when she could have told him, honestly, that she was sorry. She had let her guard down once or twice, comfortable with him still, even through the tension that would forever exist between them.

And now this. It took everything to uphold this front, it took all of her being not to show up sobbing on his doorstep and spill her goddamn guts, lay her sins bare and let him tear into her if only to let him hurt her as badly as she'd hurt him and then forgive her before she lost this battle she'd barely known she was fighting.

_But I will remember you  
__Will you remember me?  
__Don't let your life pass you by  
__Weep not for the memories_

What would he say to her? What would she say to him? Things had eased between them lately, mellowed, calmed, and yet there was still that something that dangerously separated them: bitterness, maybe a touch of hate, resentment and unresolved passion. She would look at him and try to discern his thoughts; did he feel like she did, the same way? Had he begun to forget about their differences and what she'd done and wish just for a friendship if not a reconciliation?

Their fights rarely consisted of acute, harsh jabs about the past; they refrained from hitting each other where it hurtt most now. Was it because for him, too, the memories had just become too painful to think of or to mention, and the hard feelings had started to turn soft and evolve into that throbbing longing again?

She suddenly wasn't sure if she'd truly enjoyed her achievement since the day she'd arrived at it, simply because she now knew she had barely taken a moment to stop and enjoy her life as she lived it. There had been one time, a short and yet eternity of a time, when the slow, romantic pace of things had been her warmth. She'd doused it in ice water.

She remembered it, though. It was the dull, quiet ache in her chest that sharpened when she closed her eyes and stared into his in her dreams. She had never wanted to hurt him. She was glad he'd always put his friends and his family first. He would never experience this drowning feeling like her.

She stared across her study, running her hands over her mouth, shaking slightly. She was cold and scared, and she couldn't hold back the tears anymore. She hadn't cried this hard in a long time.

_I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose  
__Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose  
__Once there was a darkness, a deep and endless night  
__You gave me everything, you gave me light. _

She had lost. After everything she'd won and all the accolades she'd accumulated, she had ultimately lost. She hadn't failed; she had triumphed, but it meant nothing to her now. The revenge she'd finally executed had hurt more than the act that had sanctioned it, and left her feeling cold and empty. It had left her asking herself why the hell she had ever given up the warmth and light of _him_ to wrap herself in darkness.

He had lifted her out of the black hole she'd sunk into after her father's suicide and shaken it from her mind without ever knowing what haunted her so fiercely, and she'd chosen to throw herself back into that onyx recess.

She ran a hand through her hair, tangling her fingers in it, tasting the salt of her tears on her lips, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut tightly. She faced the end. She stood precariously on the edge of a cliff, faced with one final decision: jump, go down fighting, summon the last of her strength to redeem her pride, or hold onto the edge until the last, crumbling rocks gave way and she fell.

Selfishly, she wanted to tell him what she faced, tell him he was going to lose her, because she knew him and she knew it would hurt him. She knew what he'd need from her, and it was what she wanted from him now. His arms, his words, his whispering, gentle touch. Reassurance. Standing on this cliff, she wanted to drown in something other than misery before her life went up in flames. She wanted to throw herself into every dizzying, pent up emotion she felt for him.

_And I will remember you  
__Will you remember me?  
__Don't let your life pass you by  
__Weep not for the memories._

Cathartic in nature, the tears helped. It felt so good to finally cry. Her thoughts could ease into place now that the sadness was slipping out of her mind and she was starting to come around. This night, spent so alone, so dark, in the unlit corner of her study, had been what she needed to help her face the reality—really face it, and ease the muscles of her mind by the release of almost eight years of unshed tears.

She had a perspective now. She had finality. She couldn't change the past; no matter how much it hurt, no matter how many regrets she had or how wrong she was. She had to come to terms, with everything, she had to let it hit her and wash over and she had to take responsibility for it and hate herself for it and then take what precious time she had left to delicately fix some of it.

She could cleave tight to the good memories and the emotions of passion and desire, and those that ran concurrent and deeper. She could find his eyes, look at him, and pour out everything into them in a way only he would understand, and she could try to heal. She needed to. She needed some kind of peace.

He had always wanted her happy. It had been something that made him so important to her and so caring, the fact that he didn't give a damn about himself. It was not through arrogance but through simple familiarity that she knew she had cut him to the core and he had never recovered, though he had forgiven her.

She wanted to give him the peace she needed for herself. She wanted him to know she wasn't hurting, because she knew he thought she was. She knew he knew she was, and he hated it, and for some sic reason he blamed himself for it. She was going to wipe these tears from her eyes and brace her shoulders. She'd had her night of weakness, she'd fallen apart, she'd grieved.

She had to move forward now, as far as she could, away from the web of lies and deception, mistrust and angst she'd tangled herself in. There wasn't time for a future when she barely had the present, but for the time being, she had memories, and if she washed the sadness away with the tears on her face, she could glorify the happiness and make damn sure he did the same when the time came for him to face this reality.

If he was going to remember her, she didn't want it to be as another person he'd failed to save, or through a bourbon-induced haze of guilt and sorrow. She didn't want to cause him another day of pain.

So much of it didn't matter now. From now on, everything was the past, and their past had been a memorable one.

_And I will remember you  
__Will you remember me?  
__Don't let your life pass you by  
__Weep not for the memories  
__Weep not for the memories_

* * *

_It got a little darker than I meant for it to..._


	7. Hurt

_A/N: I very much reccomend listening to the song. It's very raw and very haunting. be forewarned: angst._

_Hurt--by Johnny Cash_

**

* * *

**

He was going to kill himself in his never-ending consumption of bourbon on an empty stomach. He was going to starve from lack of food, lose his judgment for lack of sleep, and his increasing reckless, almost suicidal actions in the field could at any moment call his desperate bluff, go wrong, and end up getting him killed. He didn't care. That was the root of it all.

He had nothing left to care for.

_I hurt myself today  
__To see if I still feel  
__I focus on the pain  
__The only thing that's real_

It had been weeks and it felt like hours. It didn't feel like anything. There had to be more Jack than blood in his system and he drowned it with more, his hands steadied instead of shaken by the alcohol. It should provide respite and numbness. But god, it just reminded him of her, and he still turned to it. He convinced himself he was drinking to forget her.

That wasn't it.

He was drinking to remember her. Drinking until his head hurt and his muscles throbbed just because he thought he could taste her. He thought he might see her in the bottom of the bottle. He almost thought he heard her laughter. He made himself believe he could smell her perfume. He felt like he couldn't feel at all and then, in his drunken stupor, he'd stumble for the boat and the therapy it provided, and accidentally slam a nail into his thumb, pierce the skin, and drench the wood in front of him in blood.

And goddamnit, it felt good.

_The needle tears a hole  
__The old familiar string  
__Try to kill it all away  
__But I remember everything_

It felt good to hurt like that, when he had the hollow, vaguely horrifying feeling that he couldn't feel at all anymore. It was as if in the range of the shortest minute, with a few stammered, disbelieving words and then after, with crime scene photos and Los Angeles sunshine, something vital had simply been stolen away from him.

He kept trying to forget. He kept trying to tell himself he hadn't lost anything, that she had not been the person he'd missed for years and then ached for when she walked back into his life. He couldn't believe himself, though, because he knew, from the rare, nostalgic glances and secret smiles that she remembered.

He had lost something. Someone.

And suddenly, he had lost her again. Again without warning, again without _reason. _He had spent so many years hating her for what she did to him and loving her for what she did to him before that. She had been his friend and his lover and he had cared so much. He had opened himself so much at one time.

He stared blindly, catatonically, across his basement, his eyes on the boat without seeing. He was cold and lonely. Knowing that she wasn't here, not just absent from his basement but absent from his world was incomprehensible. It wasn't right.

He was letting it consume him. He wished it would consume him.

_What have I become  
__My sweetest friend  
__Everyone I know goes away in the end_

_And you could have it all  
__My empire of dirt  
__I will let you down  
__I will make you hurt  
_

He could almost see her.

In this inebriated, blissful and damaging haze it was like he could see her, sitting primly on the boat in front of him, her emerald eyes huge and pleading, sad, looking at him as if she didn't recognize him.

She had been someone who knew him so well. Someone whom he let so close. She would hate to behold him like this. It would make her cry, and he had always, _always_ hated being the cause of her tears. But how could she leave him like this? How could she isolate herself when he would have been there beside her in an instant?

Why did he feel so betrayed? When she hadn't been his for the longest time?

No. She had always been his.

He kept drinking to keep her there, refusing to let old memories bubble to the surface, instead wading in recent events; the funeral, the lie, the deception, and the rift that had been between them. He could not know if he wanted to cling to the anger he'd felt towards her or let it go and mourn her.

His mind was in chaos, his thoughts a mess. He went through the motions at work. He scared the hell out of his new team, he worried Ducky, and he knew that when she was alone, he made Abby cry. He worried them.

"Jen," he whispered softly. "Dammit, Jen!" he said louder.

Jenny was dead. God, Jenny was _dead_.

_I wear this crown of thorns  
__Upon my liars chair  
__Full of broken thoughts  
__I cannot repair_

_Beneath the stains of time  
__The feelings disappear  
__You are someone else  
__I am still right here_

It didn't feel real. He had seen her blood smeared on the floor, seen the marks of it on Tony's hands from where he'd taken a pulse. He had not seen her body; he hadn't been able to. Hadn't been able to look at her pale and cold, lifeless and empty.

She would never be that to him. He wanted her to remain beautiful and alive in the dark corners of his mind, her eyes alight with mirth and emotion and a half-cocked smirk on her face. He wanted her hair wild around her shoulders and her lips pursed, with his name on them.

A _body_ never would have been Jenny to him, no matter how much it looked like her. She was gone. She was gone and he could still hear her laugh and see her smile, every expression of her face. He could feel her hands on his cheek and smell her hair as he had when he used to place kisses in it.

That was why he kept drinking. It was easier to feel it and to remember it in this pitch black loneliness of his basement. It was easy to let him drown him. He could push himself to the limit here in a different way, in an emotional way, unlike how he pushed himself in the field—taking risks, pulling stunts that would have killed a weaker man.

_What have I become  
__My sweetest friend  
__Everyone I know  
__Goes away in the end_

He lost her. He had not been able to protect her. He had never wanted her listed in the ranks of the others; he hadn't wanted her, too, to be taken from him and hidden away in the shadows of his soul with Shannon and Kelly, and even Kate.

Women who he had cared about.

Kelly. Shannon. Kate. And now Jenny.

They had all once been important to him. Three of them had been the very world he lived in. He had never given much thought to possessions; he had loved people, and he had loved them well. And they were gone. Stolen from him.

He had nothing left, and he did not have the energy left to try and find such happiness again.

A_nd you could have it all  
__My empire of dirt  
__I will let you down  
__I will make you hurt_

He was sorry. He was so sorry. He should have told her he loved her, whether she wanted to hear it or not. She should have known that. He shouldn't have let her leave in Paris; when he found that note he should have gone after her.

He should have been there when she needed him, even when she didn't think she did.

She had pushed him away from her violently, but maybe he had let her down. Perhaps he hadn't fought hard enough when she was just trying to protect herself.

It did not matter now. She was lost, and in turn, he was lost. He was hurting.

He violently pushed the tumbler he nursed and the empty bottle away, clenching his fists as if he was holding onto her. He touched his lips, thinking of her, and he gripped the counter in front of him tightly until splinters made him wince and hurt again.

He whirled to the boat, stumbling to it and leaning against it, his head against the hard wood. He closed his eyes tightly against the burn and the ache in them, hunching his shoulders. He sank to the impersonal, cold basement floor, his head thrown back against the boat. He reached up to grip his hair, his eyes pressed into his arms.

He let the sadness and the heartache hit him. It was too dark for anyone to see. He was alone.

He let the memories crash to the forefront of his mind: their first night together in Paris, the beaches in Positano, a stolen moment of peace in a hot Serbian summer. The way she smiled when he told her he loved her and how he felt when she whispered it back.

He would save her if he could.

It was too late.

He could only feel for her now.

Feel the loss.

_If I could start again  
__A million miles away  
__I will keep myself  
__I would find away._

* * *

_I'll do something fluffy/amusing next time. Promise. _


	8. Samson

_A/N: This is (clearly) highly metaphorical. I love me some metaphors! :D It makes a lot of sense to me._

_'Samson': by Regina Spektor_

* * *

Their story was a good one.

So no one knew it but them. So it was a secret. That didn't mean it didn't happen. That didn't mean what happened in Paris wasn't the best love story never told. Theirs was a story encased in a book sewn in bullets and stolen romance, with pages of worn case files, in between the lines of which was scrawled the tale of Jenny Shepard and Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

It seemed so long ago, now. After all that had happened. The pages of their unopened history book were yellowing, the spine frayed at the edges, because they couldn't bear to look at it and no one else ever would. They had been young.

They were by no means something as memorable as Caesar and Cleopatra, nor would they ever rival the fame of Samson and Delilah, but what they had, back then, under cover—literally, figuratively—had been everything to two people with so much to hide and so much solace to seek.

_You are my sweetest downfall  
__I loved you first, I loved you first  
__Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth  
__I have to go, I have to go  
__Your hair was long when we first met_

It was taboo now. An immoral story in a banned book that could never be reopened; a sequel would never be written to ruin the fragile nostalgia of the original. Neither she, nor Jethro, spoke of it. They ignored it, and they bickered about it under the guise of veiled metaphors and bitter regrets.

So she had left him, and it was like betrayal. Jethro wasn't good at hiding his resentment and hurt when he looked at her, if it was just the two of them, even if they spoke of something utterly different than their unorthodox, storybook past.

But they were different people back then. Their work had consisted of the two of them, their instincts, and the flawless way they worked together. There had been no teams and no politics, it had been duty and the job punctuated by stolen moments of playfulness and coy romance.

It wasn't original to have an affair in Paris. It wasn't original to have an affair with your partner. But them? They weren't _Casablanca_, either. They were just a story untold.

_Samson went back to bed  
__Not much hair left on his head  
__He at a slice of Wonderbread  
__And went right back to bed  
__And history books forgot about us  
__And the Bible didn't mention us  
__The Bible didn't mention us, not even once. _

Black-and-white, indulgent memories teased her often. Out of the blue, she held on to the good ones, odds and ends in a photo book called memory. The strange ways she and Jethro had discovered things about each other without asking questions. The way they just knew each other. Felt each other. Understood.

She remembered fights that had shaken things to the core, and then fights that had ended in laughter, so trivial. How he used to eat toast in bed, after he ran in the morning, and get crumbs everywhere and she hated it.

No; they weren't Cinderella and Prince Charming, or Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler—though maybe, that was damn close in some way.

She wondered if he thought she was a mistake he'd made. A regret. An accident. She would never call him that, when she read their story to herself at night, or now, when there was nothing else to do but sit and wait. Jethro wasn't a mistake. He had been a downfall, a stumble. And damn, she wished she'd just let herself fall.

_You are my sweetest downfall  
__I loved you first, I loved you first  
__Beneath the stars came falling on our heads  
__But they're just old light  
__They're just old light  
__Your hair was long when we first met_

She thought she'd loved men, until Jethro. Maybe she had. She hadn't loved anyone like she loved Jethro, then and now. She hadn't fallen as hard. She hadn't held on to that feeling. Not until Jethro.

Their story was full of humor, sorrow, hatred, and hurt. He was no knight-in-shining-armor and Jenny herself could never be mistaken for a damsel in distress—no, not the conventional kind. She was a Joan of Arc, rather than a Mary Magdalene.

It wasn't like the age-old, well-loved, romances. Not at all. It only had the words that the two of them knew, and they were mixed, written in their blood, metaphorically.

Samson and Delilah, maybe that was it. Maybe that was close; biblical. Stories of choices and right and wrong. Except she hadn't been Delilah; she had really loved him. She had just turned her back on that. She had shredded that into pieces.

So maybe she was Delilah. She saw it in his eyes, how much she had hurt. What she had taken from him, when she made her choice. She had a heart though. No; maybe he was Samson, and she had cut his strength away.

And she was just a downfall?

_Samson came to my bed  
__Told me that my hair was red  
__Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed  
__I cut his hair myself one night  
__A pair of dull scissors and the yellow light  
__He'd told me I'd done all right  
__And kissed me until the morning light, the morning light  
__And he kissed me until the morning light_

What genre was their story? Ecclesiastic? Romance? Drama? Fiction, nonfiction, science, fantasy? It was everything and nothing. It was just history. Real. Tangible. Untold and locked like a diary by their silence and unresolved issues.

She wished she had a chance for a better epilogue. One that left him, Jethro, the only other reader with some soothing feeling of closure. She wished it wasn't like this, but it was. She almost wished it was a story everyone would know, so he wouldn't let it die.

She had killed it first, though, when she slammed the book shut and made the last page a Dear John letter instead of a happy ending.

_Samson went back to bed  
__Not much hair left on his head  
__Ate a slice of Wonderbread  
__And went right back to bed_

Was he Samson? Was she Delilah? Was she Jezebel, a different biblical woman and a lamentable one all the same? Was she comparable to any woman, when theirs was a story unique in its unfolding.

Had the story really ended, or was it just waiting to be finished, was this part the end? She knew the fire still simmered, even if she had tried to stomp it out with her cowardly footsteps as she left him. She hadn't succeeded.

Theirs was a story like no other because they hadn't been able to kill it. It had ceased to carry on for a while, but it hadn't ceased to exist. It was beyond their control.

_We couldn't break the columns down  
__No we couldn't' destroy a single one_

It was still unwritten. It was only known to them.

It was over now. And this didn't make it Romeo and Juliet, because Juliet didn't die so Romeo would stop aching for her. Juliet died because she was a stupid teenager, and Romeo followed suit. Juliet didn't die to save his life because she'd ruined it in Paris nine years ago.

Jenny did. Jenny wanted him to let go.

She read their story in her head while she waited. And she smiled.

_And the history books forgot about us  
__And the Bible didn't mention us  
__Not even once._

No Shakespeare play, no Hollywood epic, no Biblical myth. Nothing would immortalize their story. It would remain known only to them, her favorite bedtime story, with an epilogue undesirable but full of closure all the same.

Yes. Their story was a good one.

It's still a good one.

But every story has its end.

_You are my sweetest downfall  
__I loved you first. _

* * *

_Sometimes, I think I should write metaphorical prompts for the AP Exams. Then they would be fun:)_


End file.
